Cesare

-il CesareSole Absolute Triple
Exalted High Tastemaster Supreme
“In the entire world there are only a few sounds that bring joy to all but the most jaded. One is the murmur of a kitten purring. Another is the thwack of a well-pitched baseball hitting a perfectly swung bat. And the third is the pop of a cork being pulled from a bottle of wine.” —George Taber

rjquillin

2013-03-01: It had been well over a week since I visited FedEx, and I knew there was a delivery late last week I couldn't pick up as I had already left for the Dark & Delicious event. FedEx gets grumpy holding shipments for over a week, so I called them to see what was up and they were overflowing with nine deliveries, but he said there was also what appeared to be a single bottle, and I wasn't expecting a single. Interesting. Upon request, he actually opened the box to see what it was, and was kind enough to put it in their fridge. I ended up stopping by noonish, to at least sign for the deliveries even though I couldn't pick them up with the car just too full with the business move, and pick up that single.

These folks are great, so we pulled the cork, poured three tastes, and stepped outside for a sip. Light straw in color and not all that chilled, even in a breeze outside this had a plenty of floral notes. No extensive notes here, but noted a bit of citrus and all three of us agreed quite enjoyable.

Moving the business I worked for was winding down for the day and another exhausted group pondered some sips. Again most all, three male one female, agreed this had a wonderful full nose, drank very easily solo and would likely compliment varied foods. The lone dissent came from a beer drinking grad student who will drink red wine but not whites and especially those that hint at all of sweetness.

One commented:
Excellent, full nose. Good legs and great body in the mouth. Light fruit of green pear. Good acid, but still so smooth. A very enjoyable wine that would be appropriate to cheese and white, flaky fish.

2013-03-03: Evening two SWIMBO and I poured some after an earlier meal.
My thoughts remain the same, nice floral nose, a bit of citrus, good full mouth and surprisingly not much alcohol showing. Something seems to suggest a bit of RS, not sure if it's fruit, alcohol or RS driven. Very smooth and enjoyable with an evolving rather lengthy finish. SWMBO disagreed on the hint of sweetness, but found this to her liking as well.

Fast forward to…
2013-03-15: two full weeks later finishing off the Argon filled 750 ml bottle with ~200 ml remaining…
These notes taken as the wine warmed over a period of one hour from 64F to 70F

Color; still clear, pale, yellow straw.
Aroma; definitely aromatic, now picking up apricot and some tropical fruits in addition to the initial citrus.
Taste; I'd call this off-dry, possibly tilting towards sweet, but not I think from RS, perhaps the 14.7% AbV, but there is little if any alcohol bite.
Flavorful with lively acidity, especially for a Viognier, and medium body but with a nice light viscous body that lightly coats the tongue, but not at all cloying and with a lingering ~10 second finish.

The aroma actually seemed to fade as this warmed, which surprised me, or I just became fatigued.
The flavors did evolve, the citrus diminishing to be replaced by something I don't yet have the vocabulary to name, but remained quite pleasant.

Seems like a classic well made Viognier but from my reading one with a higher acidity than normally expected. I would have no difficulty enjoying over time as a cocktail or with a meal, as I have now done a few times. It remains SWMBO approved, not always an easy task for anything but a medium sweet or sweeter.

For me it will be interesting to see some numbers on this, I really hope we get pH and TA to confirm the higher perceived acidity. And RS to confirm sugar or alcohol for the sweetness.

A huge +1 for Argon as a preservative. My notes, while brief from two weeks ago are fully consistent with those from this evening.
A +1 for RBW; and as I got notice of my rehire today, I'll be in on this one.
Fred, you should expand your horizons, I'll trade you a bottle of this for a bottle of RBW Cab!

Yup, I'm in
Speed to First Woot: 0m 14.446s
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Last Wooter to Woot: rjquillin
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chipgreen

I received a bottle of Raised By Wolves Viognier as a gift from an international man of mystery. The label was groovy so I thought I'd give it a try....

Pale gold in the glass with just the slightest initial hint of effervescence. Nose of melons, stone fruits, apple, pear and honeysuckle. Full bodied with viscuous mouthfeel. Peach, apricot, apple and pear on the palate with a nice acidic bite on the longish finish.

I am a fan of Viognier and this is one of the better ones I've tried. It compared very favorably to some Miner Family Viognier I had just days earlier. Bigger nose, more fruit, better acidity, longer finish. This is definitely a worthy addition to the RBW lineup. Count me in!

Last Wooter to Woot: chipgreen

EDIT: This was even more enjoyable as it warmed up so I recommend drinking it only slightly chilled.

mschauber

Having chilled the bottle for about a week, I opened it to have with some varied cheeses and crackers as a lazy mans small (3 people) dinner party. One likes sweet whites, one likes dry PS, Bordeaux, and CdPs, and one (myself) likes Anita of everything, leaning more to the aged cabs and CdPs these days.

This Viognier (I even spelled it correctly this time,) from Raised By Wolves tastes more like it was raised by a pride of lionesses.

Slight crystallization on the cork, some floral aroma from the bottle. Straw color and had some legs. Stronger floral aroma from glass and my friend that likes sweet wine said she could smell kiwi??n. Does kiwi even have a smell?

Wine is silky smooth and seems to have a little RS and low alcohol, despite what it says on the bottle. Citrus flavors pop for me while my other friend, the dry red drinker, thought he tasted dates and apricots (I didn't find either.) The 'sweetness' seems to be inline with other bottles of this varietal I've had. The sweet white drinker didn't like it until we started having some cheese and crackers, then fell in love and is ordering some in the morning. I found both the aromas and flavors dimmed a bit with food but were still perceptible and enjoyable.

If I had anyroom I'd be in for an order but I have 30 bottles already that I can't figure out where to put them. I didn't find the sweetness to be an issue for me. I wouldn't throw spicy cheeses or even blue cheese at this wine, it will get lost. But with most cheeses and I'd imagine some lightly spiced chicken/fish/pasta, this makes a great dinner table wine, but be warned: have enough on hand because the bottle seemed to have a hole on the bottom ;) hehehehe

And now that Team USA has fallen flat on their faces, I have to root for DR BC of R. Canon (24.) So go DR

--Hey you, out there in the cold; Getting lonely, getting old; Can you feel me? - Pink Floyd/Roger Waters"First get your facts, then you can distort them at your leisure." Mark Twain"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." Derek Bokq1
My CT--

neilfindswine

These folks are great, so we pulled the cork, poured three tastes, and stepped outside for a sip. Light straw in color and not all that chilled, even in a breeze outside this had a plenty of floral notes. No extensive notes here, but noted a bit of citrus and all three of us agreed quite enjoyable.

...wait, so I'm clear... Did you taste the wine with the folks at the FedEx store? Or workmates? Or both?

rjquillin

neilfindswine wrote:...wait, so I'm clear... Did you taste the wine with the folks at the FedEx store? Or workmates? Or both?

Both. I try to get as many opinions as possible, both seasoned and newer tasters.

The FedEx crew is absolutely superb and even got one of my WineSmith bottles this week. There were three of us that day at FedEx. We've pulled corks at the store three of four times now.

The work crew, excepting the grad student from the other work, have been at this for years as well, and the one has been begging for a good PN. I think there were five of us later that same day. They are the ones that shared the 'what are you drinking' list from last, not yesterday, Friday.

And SWMBO, so a total of eight shared the RBW.

This was my first RBW, and after tasting this I may have to join Fred on the red side and try a cab.

rjquillin

So what do you think might make this, at least to me, seem off-dry? It didn't seem fruit driven, although there was plenty of that but nicely balanced by the TA. How did you do that? Vio's aren't supposed to have the backbone this seems to. The RS was way down there. The AbV isn't all that high. Trying to put the pieces together hear and learn a bit.

raisedbywolves

rjquillin wrote:So what do you think might make this, at least to me, seem off-dry? It didn't seem fruit driven, although there was plenty of that but nicely balanced by the TA. How did you do that? Vio's aren't supposed to have the backbone this seems to. The RS was way down there. The AbV isn't all that high. Trying to put the pieces together hear and learn a bit.

This viognier was grown in the Mattawa area in one of Washington's hottest Ava in northwest. Minimal was done during fermentation other than a long slow fermentation. I give most of the credit to our viticulturist and his canopy management that was done through the growing season.

rjquillin

So, as a generally accepted level of RS considered as perceptible is around 4g/l (RS 0.4) this is as you say truly a 'dry' wine. I guess what I'm perceiving that keeps me wondering then is the AbV, that can tend to add a hint of sweetness, and fruit.

Thanks for jumping in Bill.

Fred, I'm with you. I like dry reds, but this is very easy to like. If you don't grab this, you should, let me know and we'll swap bottles on the 30th. You are coming, right? If you don't like 'em. I'll take them off your hands.

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